Powe played some quality minutes along the front line of the Boston Celtics during their 2008 title run, giving them 11 points and 5 minutes a game during the playoffs. However, injuries set him back the last two seasons. This season he wasn’t contributing to Cleveland and they bought him out.

Memphis is the team in the West that all the top seeds want to avoid in the first round. A key part of that is the Zach Randolph/Marc Gasol front line that is hard to deal with. We’ll see how Powe fits in off the bench, but if he can give Memphis what he gave Boston a couple seasons ago then Memphis just got that much harder to deal with up front. He may not be able to — he wasn’t contributing in Cleveland. But the risk for Memphis is not that great.

That’s a fine sentiment. Saying it publicly is another matter. Not even Harden did that a couple years ago. He was recorded during a pregame team huddle.

There’s a fine line between self-fulfilling confidence and providing bulletin-board material to the opponent. There’s already some animosity between the teams stemming from the Stephen Curry-Harden MVP race in 2015, and it has bubbled since. No matter how harmless Capela’s remark might have been intended to be, it’ll be met contentiously in the Bay Area.

Oklahoma City traded for Victor Oladipo out of Orlando to be their third scorer, behind Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. It didn’t exactly work out that way, Durant bolted town and when Westbrook went off Oladipo was looking for a place to fit in.

That place turned out to be the Pacers.

Oladipo has been playing like an All-Star this season with Indiana, and last week he was key in snapping Cleveland’s 13 game win streak, then turned around and dropped 47 points on Denver. For the week he averaged 35.7 points a game, shot 45.7 percent from three, plus grabbed 7.7 rebounds per game.